3 things to know about the NBA Draft Combine

The NBA's draft combine gets underway in Chicago on Thursday and Friday. It should have you excited if you're a basketball fan, especially a fan of a team with a pick in the lottery.

Since the end of the NCAA Tournament, the combine is the first major scouting even ahead of the June 26 NBA draft. Following the combine, teams will look to work out players individually or in small groups and get to know them at a more intimate level, but a great deal of baseline establishing occurs over the next two days.

Who's There?

You can see the full list of invitees to the combine in the post below this one, but rest assured most North American players who are expected to be selected in the first round will be present, as will many potential second-round picks. Basically, anyone an NBA team may have interest in who is willing to attend and isn't or wasn't a part of international events will be there, save for the usual handful of players who may have been overlooked.

All 30 teams will likely have representatives there, too, even those without picks. Teams without picks will want to keep their options open on draft night and have done due diligence on players, and the combine, specifically the interview portion, can help teams establish an opinion of a player for future years, too.

Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, and Joel Embiid, the likely top-three picks in the draft, however, won't be attending, as they have little to gain by doing so.

What Happens?

The players who attend will go through an array of drills and tests over two days. In addition to 5-on-5 drills that show players in a game setting, players will participate in shooting drills, position-specific drills, and some half-court 3-on-3.

Bigger names and likely lottery picks like Dante Exum, Julius Randle, Aaron Gordon, Marcus Smart, Noah Vonleh, Doug McDermott, Nik Stauskas and more are unlikely to participate in the drills portion of the day, according to ESPN's Chad Ford, while Mitch McGary, Adreian Payne, and Sean Kilpatrick are out with illness or injury.

Players will also be measured via several athletic tests, which is the "nut" of the combine for fans and armchair analysts. Many measurements will be taken, but here are the key ones that you should, and teams will, look at: height with shoes, weight and body fat, wingspan, standing reach, hand length, and maximum vertical jump. That makes up the physical profile for a player and, while that's not a full list of what's measured, those are the metrics you'll hear mentioned ahead of the draft.

Teams also conduct interview with players to get an idea of what they're like as people and teammates, though the specifics of these interviews are usually confidential. Media availability is also a part of the combine, though teams probably weigh players' interviews with media far less than their own interviews.

Who Stands to Gain/Lose?

While the combine doesn't move the draft stock needle a great deal, there are a few ways a player can see his stock move. An extreme performance, positive or negative, will stand out, whether that be in drills, interviews, or measurements.

There are also two player types who can generally swing their stock: players with a reputation for being unathletic or small who test better than expected, and players who were hidden from the public eye, either due to a smaller role on their college squad or due to playing for a smaller school. 

ESPN's Ford outlines Stauskas, McDermott, and Tyler Ennis as players in the former group and Zach LaVine and Elfrid Payton as names in the latter. We'd suggest that Kyle Anderson, Johnny O'Bryant, and DeAndre Kane are also names that could swing their stock a few spots in the coming days.

P.J. Hairston, who left UNC for the D-League early in the college season, could also assuage some character worries with strong interviews.